Once Upon A Poet

by H S Peer

  “Want to give me the overview?” I asked.

  “I thought you were a big reader.”

  “I am, but not this. What’s your impression?”

  ‘You should talk to the investigating officer. A guy named Rodrigues.”

  “I trust you.”

  “The victim died of a gunshot wound to the head inflicted at close range.”

  “Thank you, Madame Sherlock.”

  “Her estranged husband is in Rikers charged with her murder.”

  “What about the murder weapon?”

  “A nine-millimeter pistol loaded with hollowpoint rounds,” she said.

  “They found it?”

  “In the dumpster behind the building.”

  “Prints?”

  “No prints on the pistol.”

  “Why are they holding the husband?”

  “It was common knowledge he smacked his wife around, the neighbors confirmed that. They had split up. The investigating officer guesses he came over, they had a fight, and he killed her. And, he has no alibi.”

  “That’s pretty thin.”

  “Common on Poet, we’ve held people on less. No alibi at all isn’t that a little unusual. He said he was out of town but wouldn’t elaborate.”

  I flagged down the waitress and ordered another coffee. After looking at the color eight-by-ten of a head wound, I wasn’t sure I could keep down Mona’s cooking. Bill hadn’t sold me out yet. That was one point for him. He could have been out of jail lickety-split. For a mutt, he was loyal or would be for another seven days.

  “She was a stripper, wasn’t she?”

  Gael flipped through the pages of the file and stopped near the back. “Yes, she was. She also did adult movies.”

  “Did they think maybe she was doing a little business on the side and a john killed her? Maybe an obsessive fan?”

  “That’s plausible, but they think they have their man,” she said.

  I shook my head. “This is far from open and shut. You’re railroading this guy.”

  “Common on Poet, that’s a little harsh.”

  I shrugged.

  “Now tell me, what’s got this bee in your bonnet?”

  I had to tell her something like she said, she’d called in a marker to get the file. “Bill Jenkins is an associate of mine, he asked me to look into things.”

  “He should get a good lawyer.”

  “The best legal aid can provide.”

  “Are you slumming? He’s a dime store thug. He’s done bids for assault, robbery, and break-and-enter,” she told me.

  “I know. A master criminal he’s not.”

  “Obviously.”

  I nodded.

  “So what are you going to do? Do you remember your police training? Can you still investigate or has the high-life destroyed your memory?”

  “Very funny.”

  We both sipped our coffee. Gourmet, it was not. Mona’s coffee can also be used in car batteries when they need to be recharged. I fought the urge to put a pound of sugar in mine. I was trying to learn to drink it black and not succeeding very well.

  “I’ll work the strip club angle,’ I said, “that seems to be the logical choice.”

  “You’re going to go into a strip club and start asking a lot of questions? You’ll be turfed out on your ear.”

  “Darling,” I smiled, “When you have a pocket full of flash you can do anything you want.”

  Chapter 7

  The Double-Deuce was a small, squat building in Brooklyn. The white paint on the exterior brick was faded and stained. The ‘O’ in the flashing neon sign was burnt out. It wasn’t the type of place I would visit. Ever. There were many cars in the lot beside the building. The several shiny new Cadillacs made me wonder who really owned the club. I recognized the vanity plate on one of them. If I got bored waiting I could always have a conversation with one of my favorite mobsters.

  I walked in the front door and was assaulted by the thumping music coming from the speakers stacked next to the long runway that ran down the center of the room. As mandated by international law there were several brass poles anchored around the stage. A dazed young woman wearing only a g-string and high heels danced for some bored looking men drinking draft beer.

  The bouncer walked over before I moved into the room. He motioned for me to put my arms up and started frisking me. It only took him a second to find the roscoe under my left wing. Before he could say anything, I flashed an NYPD detective shield I had stolen from a somewhat corrupt detective many years before. He backed off.

  I walked up to the bar. Several dancers were sitting on stools talking to men. That was the scam. You could talk to a stripper if you bought her a drink. For the length of a song, she would sit with you and rub your thigh while drinking a twenty-dollar glass of champagne that was really ginger ale.

  The bartender, a badly aging topless blonde, walked over to me. I ordered an imported beer. She asked if PBR was imported enough to satisfy the gentleman. I ascended and looked around the room. The dazed woman had left the stage and was replaced by a black-haired woman who looked like she was four months pregnant. To the side of the stage, I could see a neon sign that said ‘VIP Room.' That was where, for fifty dollars, you could do more than just look. Or, so I’d been told.

  I took a sip of the beer. It was warm. I tried not to gag. The bartender waited for my money. I took out my roll and peeled off a twenty. As she reached for it, I pulled it away.

  “I’m looking for Amy Hills,” I said.

  “Don’t know any Amy,” she said and reached for the bill.

  “She works here, you should know her.”

  “Sir, the beer was five dollars, I’m not here to play twenty questions with you.”

  I passed her the bill, and she made my change. Needless to say, I didn’t tip.

  The song I didn’t recognize ended another remarkably similar started. The woman sitting on the stool next to me turned around.

  “You’re looking for Amy?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I responded.

  “Why?”

  “I need to ask her a couple of questions.”

  “You a cop?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Her stage name is Jade. That’s why the bartender didn’t answer you. She’s on next. After that you can talk to her,” she said.

  “Want to tell her the man at the bar wants to see her when she’s done?”

  “Anything for you honey,” said the stripper before she walked away.

  I sipped my beer and watched the pregnant stripper finish her set. There was a smattering of applause, and the waitresses started to circulate and take orders. I felt dirty just watching this. I looked around for a newspaper, a distraction, but couldn’t find one.

  Amy, aka Jade, came out on stage. She was tall, almost six-foot-four, and thin. Her legs, elevated by high heels, were shapely. Jade wore a green satin bra and G-string. She didn’t mix with the talent I had seen so far. The audience obviously agreed with me, there were cheers as she spun around one of the poles.

  I felt someone tap me roughly on the shoulder. I turned and saw the bouncer I showed the buzzer to and a short man in a brown suit. His hair was longish and shade darker than his suit. His ears were too big for his small head, and his nose looked like it had been broken more than once.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “What are you doing here?” asked the man in the suit.

  “Watching the show,” I said.

  “You know the arrangement, we pay, and you cops stay away.”

  “I’m not here officially,” I said.

  “I don’t care why you’re here. Get out,” he said. The bouncer stepped forward.

  “Why don’t we have a discussion in your office,” I suggested.

  “We got nothing to discuss.”

  The bouncer put a meaty hand on my shoulder and said, “Time to leave, cop.”

  “I don’t think Carmine Lagusa would want you treating me like this,�
� I threw out before this altercation became physical - The vanity plate I saw had come in handy.

  The bouncer pushed me toward the door.

  “Wait a minute,” said the man in the suit, “You know Carmine?”

  “Yes,” I said, “He’s a close personal friend.”

  “Let’s see about that,” said the man, “he’s in my office. Back off Toby.”

  The bouncer put his hands up in the air in surrender and took a step back. The man in the suit motioned me toward the back of the club. He led, and I followed. We walked through a door marked private and down a flight of stairs into the basement. There were cases of booze and beer, and several cases of cigarettes. I was willing to bet they fell off the back of a truck and were being stored here until they were sold.

  The man opened a door at the far end of the corridor we’d been walking down. Inside the room, three men sat a card table. The room smelled like cigar smoke and whiskey. The walls were painted an industrial grey. An old battered desk sat against one wall covered in unopened mail and advertising circulars.

  “Hey Carmine,” said the man in the suit, “you know this guy?”

  Carmine looked up from his cards. He had black hair speckled with grey and wore a grey silk shirt with the sleeve rolled up to his elbows. He looked at me and smiled.

  “Ya, I know this mutt,” he said.

  “How you doing Carmine?” I asked.

  “I’m surviving, Poet.”

  “I don’t like having cops in my place Carmine,” said the man in the suit.

  Carmine laughed loudly. “Cop? Poet’s not a cop. He’s a poet of a thief.”

  “He has a badge,” said the man.

  “What are you doing here,” said Carmine.

  “I need to talk to one of the dancers,” I said.

  “What’s with the badge?”

  “It helps with the gun,” I said opening my jacket.

  “The dancer. What do you want to see her about?”

  “Business,’ I said.

  “Okay, I respect that. You’ll have to excuse Robert,” he said, motioning to the man in the suit, “He gets a little over eager.”

  I nodded.

  “Why don’t you stay and have a drink,” asked Carmine, “we’ll deal you in for a couple of hands.”

  “Sorry,” I said, “I have work to do.”

  “Okay. I have something coming up you might be interested in, Poet. You still own the Liar’s Breath?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, I’ll be in touch.”

  Robert still had color in his cheeks. He would have liked for Carmine not to have known me. He would have like to see the bouncer jump me in the parking lot.

  I retraced my steps and found my seat at the bar. A new song had just started, and Amy/Jade was still on stage. She was a chesty woman with curves a painter would have loved. Her cheekbones were high and rouged, and her mouth was a small circle red circle. She was the type of woman some men go crazy for. I wasn’t one of them. All I wanted from her was what was stored in her head.

  She could move. Judging by the money they were stuffing in her g-string the audience liked her as well. I took a sip of beer. It was still warm. She bumped, ground and did her best interpretive dance of unrestrained lust through two more songs and then left the stage. I ordered another beer and asked the bartender to take away the warm one.

  After two cigarettes Amy appeared. She perched herself on the stool next to me.

  “You looking for me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I have no problem talking to you, but you have to buy me drinks. That’s the rule.”

  “Whatever you say,” I smiled.

  She motioned for the bartender and ordered a faux champagne cocktail.

  “What’s your pleasure? You don’t look like this is your kind of place,” she said and sipped her drink.

  “I’m here about Cindy McMillen.”

  “You a cop?”

  “I’m just a guy trying to help out a friend.”

  She slowly shook her head. “It was really terrible, Cindy getting killed and all.”

  There was a hint of southern tang in her voice. You could tell she was trying hard not to let it show.

  “What’s your interest in her?” she asked.

  “I want to find who killed her.”

  “Her husband did. It was in the papers. He’s in jail.”

  “Maybe he’s innocent.”

  “Not likely. He knocked her around pretty good. She’d come in here with bruises all over her sometimes. She had to use a ton of makeup to cover up,” she said.

  “Anything else?”

  “There was a big scene here one night, about three months ago. It was just after she started. I don’t think she told her husband what she was doing to make ends meet. He stormed in and pulled her off the stage and dragged her outside.”

  “But that didn’t stop her?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, “She came back a few days later with a black eye and bruises from fingers on both her arms.”

  “Did she ever take her work home with her.”

  Amy’s mouth contracted and her brow furrowed. For a minute I thought she might throw her drink in my face.

  “Just because were strippers doesn’t mean we’re whores,” she said with ice in her voice. She finished her drink and nodded at the bartender for another one.

  “I realize that,” I said, “But sometimes . . .”

  Amy pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a battered Zippo lighter. She tasted the smoke before she spoke again.

  “Cindy was a straight arrow. She was only working here for the money. She didn’t like to take men into the VIP lounge,” she said.

  “Was she using?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nothing?”

  “We smoked some weed together, but that was all. She was in too good of shape to be on the pipe.”

  “Any boyfriends?”

  “A couple. Her last boyfriend came in here and watched her sometimes.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Larry Driscole. He’s a plumber with A&M in Brooklyn.”

  “Good guy?”

  “Seemed to be,” she said.

  “Any chance he killed her?”

  “Mister, her no-good husband killed her.”

  “Maybe so, but I like to cover all the bases,” I replied.

  She shook her head. “Larry wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s harmless.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Nothing comes to mind.”

  I pulled a card out of my wallet. The only thing on it was my cell phone number.

  “You remember anything else will you call me?”

  “It might cost you dinner,” she said.

  “I can live with that.”

  She finished her drink and got off the stool. She winked at me and started to circulate through the room.

  She’d told me damned little. All I knew now was that Cindy wasn’t turning tricks or using drugs. Those avenues led nowhere. I was hoping there was pissed off pimp or dealer in the equation. That would make things easier. I headed back into the city.

  Chapter 8

  With my trip to Brooklyn a rousing success I decided to have a couple of drinks in the Liar’s Breath. The bar wasn’t as full as I would have liked, but it was respectable, twenty or thirty people drinking and chatting. My seat at the end of the bar, the one with the reserved sign in front of it, was filled by Marty Jerome, a fence who threw a lot of work my way.

  “Make yourself at home,” I said.

  “Already have,” said Marty.

  He was dressed in another outlandish costume. He shopped at thrift stores, odd for a man with an endless budget. His pants were a red plaid; a powder blue shirt and a navy blazer with very wide lapels complimented. White chest hair stuck out of the top of the shirt that had three buttons undone. A gold chain encircled his neck.

  Marty was drinking champagne. A bottle
of Dom Perignon was on the bar in an ice bucket. That meant business. Marty always drank champagne when he was here on business. It was an unwritten rule that I would pick up the tab. In his mind, it was best to order the most expensive thing if he wasn’t footing the bill.

  “I take it you have a job of me,” I said.

  “Not here. In your office.”

  The existence of my bar and its clientele isn’t a secret by any means. Occasionally tourists intrigued by the name will wander in for a drink, but, for the most part, it a place where the underworld meets and greets each other. The pay phones and business lines are tapped, by who I’m not sure. FBI, NYPD, BATF its all an alphabet soup to me. Often there’s a surveillance van parked outside with cops of some sort taking photographs of my patrons. I don’t let any of it bother me, it’s part of my business. Once a week I do have a PI who specializes in bugs come in and sweep my office. There has to be one space that’s safe: My inner sanctum.

  I sat behind the desk and put my feet up on the corner. Marty sat in the red club chair on the other side. He’d brought a glass of champagne with him. I lit a cigarette and waited. Marty drained half the glass before starting.

  “I have a job for you,” he said.

  “Let’s have it.”

  He looked embarrassed.

  “Come on,” I prompted, “Spit it out.”

  “I’m sorry about this, Poet, it’s a beneath you.”

  “Now you have me interested.”

  He cleared his throat and started, “I need you to steal a hearse.”

  I too dumbfounded for words.

  “Poet?”

  “A hearse?” I asked.

  “Yes, a hearse.”

  “The kind of car you carry dead people in.”

  “Come on, Poet, don’t make this any harder than it is.”

  I laughed. “Marty, you always surprise me, I’ll give you that,” I said.

  He drank the rest of his champagne and looked very sad.

  “You don’t need me for this,” I started, “You need a two-bit car jockey. Pay him a grand, and everything is jake.”

  “I know. My usual car guy was pinched last week. I was going to give the job to him. He’s a master with anything mechanical.”